Aemon had known the feel of being cornered before, once when he went to Hardhome to save wildlings and then in Battle of Bastards against Boltons but the Martell eyes burning into his back were its own kind. Oberyn and his wife and daughters followed them in guarded silence, their soles falling soft on stone. The hidden passage Shiera had chosen was narrow with low ceiling and without a single torch with them to hold back the darkness.
He turned once, catching Oberyn's stare in the gloom. "Is there a problem, Martell?"
The Dornish prince's jaw clenched, words ready to spill sharp as his own spear, but his lover's, Ellaria Sand's fingers tightened on his wrist, in a silent command. Oberyn swallowed his venom. The Sand daughters glanced between their father and mysterious men in tense curiosity. The air in the passage seemed to grow saline with every step they took.
Shiera said nothing as she led, her strides sure even in the absolute dark as if she had walked these tunnels just yesterday and not a century before. They descended a final angled stretch, the sound of waves rising around them. She pressed her gloved hand to a panel of stone that jutted just slightly from the rest and it opened with a muted groan.
They stepped out into the harbour's foundations behind the bulwark, a narrow opening cut into the lower wall unseen from the docks. The cries of gulls and the insistent lap of the water of Blackwater Bay rushed in.
Oberyn saw the ship first. The sun-and-spear of Dorne flew on its mast, orange and crimson against the clear sky. Martell men stood at the planks, tense and scanning the piers. "Move," he hissed, urgency overriding his pride. "That's my brother's ship, we have to make a run now."
Shiera glanced to Aemon as he gave a curt nod.
"Aunt you'll take the vanguard," he told her. "I will hold rear and Martell's you'd be between us."
Oberyn didn't argue with the plan as he caught Ellaria around the waist to steady her as she climbed over the stone with Obara and Nymeria at his heels. The hidden door sealed behind them with a hard shove from Aemon's palm.
Though the gold cloaks were already in number upon the harbour and port. They moved between barrels and stacks of carts, checking lines of merchants and sailors. Shiera slipped ahead in silence, her sword already drawn.
Oberyn's eyes narrowed at it. "Is that a—"
"Not the time, Martell," she snapped over her shoulder, shutting his words before he could confirm what he was seeing.
They pushed through the tangle of carts and crates. Smallfolk like porters and sailmenders shrank back back as they passed, sensing nobility in their bearing than any cloaks or house colors could name. They were half across the wide stone causeway of the harbour when the shout came.
"THERE! STOP!"
Boots hammering against the harbour stones, Gold cloaks poured from an alley between two ferrymen's warehouses, a dozen or more, their steel unsheathing the moment they saw them. At their front strode a frog-faced stout man, with a thick neck and a bald head built like a keg. He wore ornate gold-and-black plate, with a high-crested helm
Aemon turned and the fury that rose in him seeing that man, was something that came when he last saw Ramsay. "Fucking Janos Slynt."
"Keep moving!" he barked to Shiera and the Martells. "Run for the ship and don't look back."
Shiera didn't hesitate and continued running as Nymeria and Obara placed Ellaria between them. Oberyn hesitated only for a heartbeat, torn between pride and logical sense, then followed his daughters crowding close to them.
Aemon stepped away from them and toward the oncoming line of gold cloaks.
Arianne Martell stood on the deck of the dornish ship, the bitter taste of fear and fury warring in her mouth for the first time. They had come to Crownlands under Lannister terms, believing some brittle treaty of marriage of her to Lannister dwarf might yet salvage their blood. Now she stood here waiting to be taken like slave to the Red Keep, although with wrists unbound but future shackled as a broodmare to Lannister greed of power.
She had been staring at the city's looming walls when Ser Daemon Sand's voice cut in, tight with alarm. "Princess you should look at this."
She strode to the rail. At first she saw only few figures sprinting from beneath the harbour wall, a woman in a mask leading and three others close behind. Then she recognized her uncle's gait even at a distance, Ellaria by her dark hair and the shapes of her cousins Nymeria and Obara in torn cloaks.
Her breath caught. "Mother Rhoyne above…"
But her eyes dragged further past them where there was another. A tall man with hair white as snow, sword sheathed at his side until the gold cloaks closed the gap.
"That fool's about to die," Daemon muttered.
Arianne didn't answer. There was something in the way the white-haired man stood, weight settled on his legs, chin lifted and utterly alone against number of men rushing to him, that stilled the words in her throat.
Slynt's soldiers came on in half-running with urgency and blades out, shouting to seize them all.
The man drew his sword in one effortless, terrible motion.
What followed was no battle; it was butchery given the name of battle.
He moved into them quick as quick as a snake, feet light as any water dancer she has seen from Braavos. The first swing he did was not a thrust or slash but a full turn of his hips and shoulders, the dark sword dancing. It took the first and nearest gold cloak at the waist, parting him clean in two. Torso slid from hips in a wet collapse. She didn't even hear a scream from that one.
He danced around the causeway even as blood sprayed on the stones, letting the next man's sword ring against his own not blocking it, but guiding the stroke aside, twisting the man's momentum such that the soldier stumbled into his companion. His sword return cut was a short, savage arc that took the stumbling man's forearm from the elbow. Blood jetted as he fell back shrieking.
He did not stay still long enough for them to surround him. He advanced to them always pressing each one of them, turning their clumsy numbers worthless to his talent with sword. A sword thrust came for his spine from behind but he twisted aside without even looking back, letting it slide past before he stepped in and carved his sword's edge through the attacker's collarbone to the heart. Another blade aimed for his ribs, but he knocked it aside with the flat side of his own, followed through with a short, brutal arc that severed the man's wrist. The cut-off hand still gripping the sword, hit the stones with a clank before the owner began to shriek.
The harbour watched in horror. Dockworkers froze with their work in hand and traders from Lys and Braavos shrank behind their crates. Even the birds above seemed to fall silent above the carnage.
Obara and Nymeria had reached the ship's deck by then and stood at the railing, eyes wide. Ellaria had a hand clutched to her mouth.
On deck, Arianne gripped the wood so hard her knuckles whitened.
Daemon Sand swallowed loudly. "He's a fucking Maegor reborn."
The masked woman, who stood by their side watching the massacre down, breathing hard from her run, did not take her eyes off the slaughter. "No, boy," she said, voice low and amused. "He's ice and fire born."
Oberyn had just reached Arianne's side, chest heaving. Her words struck him like a slap, his black eyes narrowed to slits. "He is Rhaegar and her son, isn't he?" he rasped.
Shiera tilted her head, lips curling behind the red mask. "What do you think, Martell?"
Below, the screams dwindled. The last of the gold cloaks who still stood took faltering steps back, blades falling down their hand their courage turned water. Their dead and dying friends lay scattered like butcher's scraps.
And then Janos Slynt, face pale as his opponents hair stumbled to his knees. "Please—please, mercy, my lord, I beg you—"
When the boy spoke, his voice was soft as any bard in a tavern, Arianne had heard, almost like a melody. "Tell me, Ser Janos... or is it Lord Janos now? You never use your brain, do you?"
Slynt sobbed into the stones.
"Never mind," Aemon went on with his quiet and cold voice, "since you never seem to use it, let me take it from you."
He raised his sword. It fell, not at the men's neck, but sliced through the man's forehead. A wet, sickening crunch splitting flesh and skull. Grey-white matter mixed with the red blood spilled onto the stones. The body convulsed once before it stilled.
He wiped the brain remains on the sword with Slynt's cloak, unhurried. Then lifted his gaze to the gold cloaks lingering at the far end of the harbour. None dared to step forward onto it.
Without a word, he turned his back on them and walked toward the Martell ship, the blade at his side still dripping red.
Oberyn had to shout to the helmsman twice before the man remembered to get the ship moving.
The ship's mooring ropes were loosed with trembling hands. The wind off the bay catching its sails as Aemon stepped on the ship.